UCSD profs' letter says not all campuses equal

SACRAMENTO – As it confronts an unprecedented financial crisis, the University of California is crackling with debate over some provocative proposals – such as closing one or more campuses – outlined in a letter signed by 21 UC San Diego department heads.

The professors argue that the world's finest public university should preserve its elite, world-class research campuses – namely UCSD, UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Francisco – and impose proportionately deeper budget cuts on the less-renowned campuses in Merced, Riverside and Santa Cruz or, if necessary, shut them down.

They say it's time that the system acknowledge the brutal truth: Not all UC campuses are equal.

“Rather than destroying the distinctiveness and excellence at Berkeley, UCLA and UCSD by hiring temporary lecturers to do most of the teaching . . . we propose that you urge the President and Regents to acknowledge that UCSC, UCR and Merced are in substantial measure teaching institutions . . . whose funding levels and budgets should be reorganized to match that reality,” stated the letter, written by Andrew Scull, head of the UCSD sociology department.

The four-page letter went on to suggest dropping “the pretence that all campuses are equal” to support an argument “for a selective reallocation of funds to preserve excellence, not the current disastrous blunderbuss policy of even, across the board cuts.

“If that is too hard, we suggest that what ought to be done is to shut one or more of these campuses down, in whole or in part. We have suffered more than a 30 percent cut in our funding from the state, and we can thus no longer afford to be a 10-campus system . . . ”

After years of declining state support, the UC system faces an $813 million, 20 percent cut in state funding over the next year. Scull drafted his proposals after a briefing on potential cuts at UCSD.

Scull said he knew the letter would be controversial within the intensely competitive and proud UC community. So he let it cool for five days in a drawer before he began circulating it.

When it was quickly embraced by 21 of UCSD's 28 department heads, Scull incorporated some suggested changes and sent the letter to UC President Mark Yudof in mid-June.

It languished there quietly until July 8, when someone delivered a copy to the Merced Sun-Star.

The responses since have ranged from incendiary to measured indignation. However, two independent higher-education specialists said downsizing the UC system might be a good idea.

The day the letter became public, Yudof moved quickly to defuse the situation, saying it had become “particularly distressful to the faculty at other campuses.”

“Neither the closure of any campus nor a deliberate action to de-emphasize the research mission of any campus will be under consideration,” Yudof declared in a letter sent to all 10 UC chancellors.

Nonetheless, Scull said he has been bombarded with hate e-mail excoriating him for suggesting such a thing. But he has no regrets.

“It was not done lightly,” Scull said in an interview. “I felt it had to be said and I think some of it may have to be done, as hard as that is to say.”

The state accounts for just under 20 percent of the UC system's overall budget, but the state money pays most of the core expenses of campuses. With state support for the system declining sharply, and unlikely to be restored anytime soon, if ever, Scull said the university faces difficult, painful choices.

UC professors already are paid 20 percent below their peers at comparable institutions, Scull said. That disparity will widen when just-approved furloughs and pay cuts begin in September, and again next year, when the system resumes payroll deductions for the UC retirement plan.

Prominent research professors already are leaving for higher-paying jobs elsewhere, and for now, none are being replaced at UCSD. Other UC campuses also are unable to fill hundreds of faculty vacancies.

To attract similar talent in the future – talent like the researchers who helped develop California's biotech, high-tech and other industries – will cost more than the state will be willing to pay, Scull warned.

“I came here from the Ivy Leagues,” he said. “I've devoted 31 years of my career to the University of California, and I can't stand idly by and watch it be destroyed because people don't understand what a precious thing they've got. What had been built in 100 years can be destroyed in five.”

The reaction has been perhaps strongest in the Central Valley, where supporters, students and faculty at four-year-old UC Merced are particularly sensitive about the campus's junior status.

“I was incensed,” said Linda Torres, a UC Merced lecturer who expects to receive a doctorate in literature this fall from UCSD.

Torres, who is from Fresno, didn't plan to return to the valley after living for years along the coast and completing graduate school at UCSD. But she was drawn back by her family and the realization that she could be a role model and convince other local students that “maybe I can go to grad school.”

“How dare Scull and his signatories deem this campus 'less than equal?' ” Torres wrote in a column in the local paper. “Having taught at both campuses, I beg to differ.

“Not one of my students has told me they are attending the university 'because my parents want me to,' as I heard repeatedly at UCSD.”

A columnist for The Modesto Bee dismissed Scull and the other UCSD department heads as “sun-soaked, fish-taco-eating egotists (who) want to protect themselves by picking on the weakest links.”

At UC Riverside, creative-writing major Kat Sanchez said she also was offended by the letter. Sanchez, a Redlands resident, said Riverside was the only UC campus to which she applied.

“I got a great education here, and I met amazing professors and learned things here that I don't think I would have had the opportunity to learn at UC Berkeley or wherever,” Sanchez said.

Faculty members interviewed at Merced and Riverside politely disagreed with the proposals.

“Yes, we have a big threat here, but we shouldn't cut off an arm to correct the problem,” said Anthony Norman, a biochemistry professor and chairman of the Academic Senate at UC Riverside.

Norman said Riverside expects to become the next UC member of the Association of American Universities, an elite group of research universities that includes six other UC campuses.

But, as painful as closing or narrowing the mission of a UC campus might be, two higher-education experts said it's worth a serious discussion.

“Does the state really need nine or 10 world-class research institutions?” asked Steve Boilard, director of higher education for the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office. “It seems very duplicative. No other state has that many publicly funded, major research institutions.

“So maybe this idea of two tiers – you have the big three or maybe four, where you focus on top researchers, and the other ones are more focused on undergraduate instruction – I'm not sure the state would suffer from that.”

Patrick Callan, president of the nonpartisan, nonprofit National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, agreed. The state's historic level of funding for the UC system is unlikely to be restored in the foreseeable future, he warned.

“It is time for the university . . . to recognize that we are probably highly overextended at the research-and-graduate-education end,” Callan said.

“We are trying to do so much that we are likely to end up eroding the quality of the best programs we have. . . . Why do we have things like (UC) Irvine starting a law school? Have you heard anyone say California needs more lawyers?”